


you're worth the weight

by mrdaikichi



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gym bros, Light Angst, M/M, dirty jokes????, is this an extended love letter to wonho? maybe, to bro or not to bro, very light angst, working out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25186807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrdaikichi/pseuds/mrdaikichi
Summary: “Seriously, though. We’re making a pact,” Hyungwon says, grabbing his right hand and shaking it. “We’re going to get ripped. And join the Big Tiddie Committee and wear see-through bodysuits.”“For Monbebe,” Minhyuk says, pulling his hand out of Hyungwon’s grip and rubbing palm sweat off on his comforter. He takes up the controller again. “Fine.”-------------hyunghyuk bond over muscle pain and missing wonho *tags will be updated*
Relationships: Chae Hyungwon/Lee Minhyuk
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> -full disclosure i may give up on this and let it die cuz im struggling w writing it already lol-  
> hi guysss im starting this crazy ride again~  
> idk how many ch this will be? but definitely not long  
> its like a slow burn but it's short... you'll see kind of maybe  
> im trying to keep it as canon as i can? but idrk that much about idol life/schedules so sorry if theres a lot of inaccuracies  
> thanks for reading, always :)))
> 
> also - i dont know much about the gym beyond elliptical and treadmill so fitbebes, pls dont come for me

“Can you open this for me?” Hyungwon says, passing Minhyuk a metal water bottle. They’re lying side-by-side on their stomachs on Minhyuk’s bed, because it’s roughly the temperature of the devil’s morning breath outside and his and Changkyun’s room has the best airflow. “Shownu-hyung used it last and it’s like he didn’t want it to be opened ever again.”

“Maybe I didn’t,” comes Hyunwoo’s voice from where he’s stretched out on the cool wooden floor. Hyungwon rolls his eyes and shakes the bottle in front of Minhyuk’s face.

“Why don’t you just ask him to open it, then?” Minhyuk says, dropping his controller to wrestle with the lid. It’s the third time this week that they’ve “borrowed” Kihyun’s Switch without asking.

“You’re closer,” Hyungwon says. Oh, yeah. Minhyuk’d forgotten that Hyungwon chose to expend minimum energy on things like movement.

After two or three minutes of futile struggle, Minhyuk gives up. “You don’t want to drink out of this thing, anyway,” he says. “It’s, like, 33 degrees outside. The water’s gonna be lukewarm and taste like metal. You can wait a little longer.”

Changkyun, who’s lying on his own bed, holds his hand out for the bottle. Hyungwon stares.

“You think you can open it? Minhyukie couldn’t,” he says, incredulous, then tosses it to him.

Changkyun opens it easily and drinks half the contents, then passes it to Hyunwoo, who finishes it off. The brat has the nerve to kiss his surprisingly defined bicep and laugh. If looks could kill, his minutes would be numbered.

“Everyone’s turning into a gym rat,” Hyungwon grouses, rolling over to face the ceiling. 

There’s a tremble in the air, then, and Minhyuk knows that their minds have gone to the same place.

Hoseok’s absence is still raw and conspicuous. It had faded a little bit in the middle, and was easier to forget as long as they stayed off stupid Twitter. Now, though, they’re promoting again, without him, and it feels lopsided and wrong.

He can’t sit with that discomfort, though, not yet, maybe not ever, so he clears his throat and dares Changkyun to only wear low-cut shirts for all of their comeback stages.

“I’m sure Monbebe want to see your, ah, progress,” he grins.

Changkyun glares, then shrugs. “Fine. I’m not a coward.”

“It’s not fair,” Hyungwon whines. He pushes himself up onto his knees, then flops across Minhyuk’s back. “We can’t do that kind of stuff. Sexy costume stuff.”

“Get off of me, oh my god. It’s hot enough already. And speak for yourself. I’ve had too many unintentional physique-reveals.” He winces involuntarily at the memory of the time he’d ripped his entire shirt open on stage. And his abs hadn’t been ready that week. Scarring.

“See? You’re too weak to get me off,” Hyungwon says.

Minhyuk twists his head around to make eye contact and wiggles his eyebrows. “Or am I?”

“Ew, ew, ew, ew,” Hyungwon says, practically catapulting away from him. Minhyuk laughs. Changkyun mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like _get a room_ into his pillow.

“Seriously, though. We’re making a pact,” Hyungwon says, grabbing his right hand and shaking it. “We’re going to get ripped. And join the Big Tiddie Committee and wear see-through bodysuits.”

“For Monbebe,” Minhyuk says, pulling his hand out of Hyungwon’s grip and rubbing palm sweat off on his comforter. He takes up the controller again. “Fine.”

+

It’s filming after filming after filming right now. They’re carted to a different set with different cute games and interviews every hour, not to mention their recorded stages with a few staff members waving lightsticks in the audience. The dancing is fucking exhausting, though. Just like a real performance.

“Why can’t,” Minhyuk manages to say between heaving breaths as they stagger offstage and are swarmed with staff members and damp towels, “why can’t this just be our workout? I’m definitely going to have some insane thighs after this.”

Hyungwon tips his head back to drink from a condensation-beaded plastic water bottle. His neck is pale and smooth and milky, even without makeup, even with a trickle of sweat running right down his throat. Minhyuk watches him swallow, then wipe his mouth on a blinged-out sleeve.

“Because it’s all about the upper body,” Hyungwon says, and slaps Minhyuk’s chest. Someone swoops in to fix his hair and pat his forehead dry, but he keeps eye contact with Minhyuk over her head. “We’re not sexy. We have to be sexy.”

Minhyuk tips his head to the side, contemplative. “You have the bone structure of uncooked spaghetti.”

Hyungwon ignores him and bends his knees a little bit so the stylist can touch up his eye makeup. “It’s happening.” He blinks. “Gym tomorrow.” And he walks away on his skinny ass legs with way too much confidence.

+

“Wake up,” Hyungwon says, kneeling over Minhyuk with one knee on either side of his waist. He slaps his face lightly. “Wake up. Wake up.” _Slap, slap._

Minhyuk groans and flaps his hands. He figures he can fall back asleep even if Hyungwon is a dead weight in his lap. It’s kind of comforting, honestly.

That is, until Kihyun barges in demanding to know why the hell Hyungwon is awake at 6 a.m. and who sold their soul for it.

“I’m awake of my own volition,” Hyungwon says, proudly, sitting up a little straighter. His ass-bones stab into Minhyuk’s thighs. 

“Oh my god, demon deals at twenty-eight,” Kihyun says, then walks away, shaking his head. Minhyuk sits up and dumps Hyungwon off his lap onto the ground. Changkyun is miraculously still sound asleep.

It’s early enough that they can pull on hooded sweatshirts and walk to the gym without being recognized or bothered. It’s still and quiet outside, and the late spring heat hasn’t yet had time to settle into the air. They walk side by side in silence until Hyungwon speaks.

“Honestly, I have no idea what we’re supposed to do,” Hyungwon says, turning. Between his floppy, half-blonde bangs and black mask, Minhyuk can’t see more than his eyes. They’re really unfairly big and sparkly but that’s neither here nor there. “There are so many machines, all designed for a unique brand of torture.” He sighs, pulls off his hood, runs a hand through his hair, and puts the hood back on.

“Me neither, but hey, this is your idea. I don’t need to work out,” Minhyuk says. He lifts up his top and flexes his abs. “Look at that definition.”

“Where?” Hyungwon says, innocently, leaning over to look. Minhyuk swats him.

“Shut up. I’m only doing this with you because I love you,” he says, smirking. Hyungwon shoots him a finger heart, then pulls open the door of the gym. There’s a ripped guy sitting at a desk who nods at them as they walk in and pretend to know what they’re doing.

“Go go go,” Hyungwon hisses out of the side of his mouth. “To the spiky monkey bars at the back where he can’t see us.”

“Spiky monkey bars,” Minhyuk repeats, gaze following Hyungwon’s pointing finger to the squat rack. “Okay.”

They’re exhausted by the time they stagger back onto the street. “Look,” Hyungwon says, waving his phone around in front of Minhyuk’s face. “My arm’s trembling. From holding my _phone_.”

“This had better be worth it,” Minhyuk pants. “Since when is our dorm this far away? I swear we’ve been walking for an hour.”

Hyungwon lifts a trembly arm to check the time. “Close,” he says. “Five minutes, actually.”

Minhyuk groans and stops walking, leaning on his knees. His legs are shaking.

“I think I know why they’re called deadlifts,” he says. “Just leave me here to die. You go on.”

“You fought until the end,” Hyungwon says gravely. “It’s okay, I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”

“Really?”

“Hell no,” Hyungwon scoffs, then grabs Minhyuk’s hand and drags him along. “You’re not ditching me. We’re in this together.”

Their linked hands swing in between them all the way home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What,” Hyungwon manages to gasp after guiding the bar shakily back onto the rack, “is the point of this if we can’t even get, like, girls?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is such a small update >< but I was sooo stuck on this part so hopefully now I've gotten it out of my system and ill be able to finish with 3 or 4 chapters! Sorry if it's not super great, I'll do my best for next time
> 
> in other news..  
> LOSING YOU ;-------; you guys I can't

By their second week of working out, Hyungwon finally manages to lift the benchpress bar—without weights on it, of course. 

“What,” he manages to gasp after guiding the bar shakily back onto the rack, “is the point of this if we can’t even get, like, girls?”

Minhyuk raises an eyebrow at him. “We can,” he says, turning around to check himself out in the mirror as he does bicep curls. For science.

“Not, like, intransient ones,” Hyungwon says. “Who’s going to appreciate all this?” He gestures to himself, then turns his head and catches sight of Minhyuk flexing in the mirror. Instead of making fun of him, he says, “Whoa, you look good.”

Minhyuk blinks and says “Thanks,” but it’s not until later that the irony strikes him.

+

“Hey, Minhyukie.”

“Mmmm,” Minhyuk responds, not looking away from his phone.

“Lee Minhyuk,” Hyungwon repeats. Minhyuk groans and pauses his game, looking up to see Hyungwon peeking around the doorframe. He sits up and stretches his text-neck away.

“What do you want?” he asks. Hyungwon closes the door carefully behind him.

“Where’s Changkyun?”

Minhyuk shrugs. “Studio.” He picks up a pillow and throws it at Hyungwon’s face. “Spit it out.”

Hyungwon glares at him and hugs the pillow to his chest. “I was just thinking, like, shouldn’t we take protein powder or whatever? If we wanna maximize our,” he drops the pillow to slap his nonexistent bicep, “gains?”

Minhyuk wrinkles his nose. “Gains? You sound like Hoseok-hyung.” He says his name with a barely-noticeable hiccup in his voice.

Hyungwon sits down next to him. “Let’s call him and ask.” He’s sitting so close that Minhyuk can feel Hyungwon’s breath on his cheek as he leans over his shoulder to jab at Hoseok’s contact on his phone.

The phone rings once, twice, before Hoseok picks up.

“Minhyukie!”

“Hi, hyung,” Minhyuk says, smiling as he twists a corner of his bedspread between his fingers. “Hyungwon’s here, too,”

“Hyungwon-ah,” Hoseok says, and his voice is somehow, indescribably, softer.

“Hyung,” Hyungwon replies. Minhyuk feels him swallow against his shoulder.

They tell Hoseok what they’re trying to do, and he sounds surprised, coming out with a sweet startled laugh before listing the supplements he takes, throwing out words like _macros_ and _whey_ and encouraging them to drink those awful bags of blended chicken.

A few minutes in, with Hoseok talking happily away on the other end of the line, Minhyuk notices his shoulder is a little bit damp, and Hyungwon hasn’t spoken in a while. He makes Hoseok promise to meet them for dinner Friday night, then hangs up.

Hyungwon’s cheeks are streaked with tears, his lips and nose flushed, eyes brimming.

“Oh,” Minhyuk says, then reaches up to wipe his face with a sleeve. 

“Yeah,” Hyungwon says, voice breaking, and he sounds tired, almost resigned. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t,” Minhyuk says, frowning. “Seriously. You’re allowed to…”

Hyungwon covers his mouth with a hand and starts to cry harder, but Minhyuk’s mind is awhirl so all he can think to do is pull him close and feel his shoulders shake. He rubs Hyungwon’s back and tries to convince himself that they’ll be okay. He remembers Hoseok’s happy voice and feels his resolve fracture, cracks spidering through regardless of how hard he tries to pull himself together. 

This is just how the industry is, he tells himself. This—Hoseok being gone—isn’t a big deal. It’s a force-it-down-and-smile kind of thing. Or, if you’re desperate, a cry-alone-at-night kind of thing.

Despite his best efforts, he finds himself thinking about Hyungwon and Hoseok, the not-so-secret softness in their eyes when they looked at each other, the way he’d find them awake and talking in the middle of the night. He thinks about love, and the forms it takes, and the way Hyungwon had been quiet and withdrawn for weeks, tearless and tight-lipped, drifting around like a shadow.

Screw this, he thinks, and breaks. They cry, curled together, for a long time.

+

Their promotional schedule seems endless, dragging three weeks into May, so their anniversary live is a sweet respite. They pile onto a bench in front of the camera and a table full of food and Minhyuk can’t help but notice the way Hyungwon slides onto the bench right next to him so their thighs touch.

At one point, Hyungwon’s hand brushes Minhyuk’s stomach—his unflexed, admittedly slightly squishy stomach—and he starts to crack up, shoving a stupid apologetic smile in Minhyuk’s face.

 _There’s a camera,_ Minhyuk reminds himself, but he’s honestly gotten away with much worse, so he leans over to Hyungwon and presses his mouth up against his ear, whisper-ranting about how not all of them have a jacked-up metabolism, breaking out into giggles as he does. Hyungwon laughs, too, and almost wails when Minhyuk tickles him. Minhyuk has the strange, terrible urge to kiss his cheek, so he pulls away, both of them breathless and giggly and pointedly ignoring the way the staff is staring at them.

Minhyuk tries to avoid eye contact with Hyungwon from then on, because he’s developed a strange tickly feeling in his chest that he wants to stay away from.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> minhyuk has, as the kidz say, "caught feelings"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not me posting this wimpy update after a shit ton of months.... n e ways...  
> also in one of the latest monchannel eps hyungwon says he benchpressed the empty bar before adding weights to it. am i clairvoyant or wat  
> hope everyone has a great holiday :)) <3

To Minhyuk, Hyungwon had always seemed the ethereal, untouchable kind of beautiful, like a frosty marble statue. Now, though, watching him struggle with the shoulder press in side profile, sweaty bangs scraped back into a tiny, brassy, limp ponytail, he realizes that that dreamy marble crust has cracked and fallen away.

Hyungwon is real, he realizes. It shouldn’t be as jarring as it is. Real and right there in front of him, grimacing in pain like he’s undergoing surgery without anesthesia. He feels a cliche flutter in his stomach and swallows. He vows to do forty more sit-ups as penance for his stupid little crush.

When they’re walking back to the dorm, Hyungwon points wordlessly at the sky, which is awash in the colors of a cloud-smothered sunset.

“Pretty,” Minhyuk says, and Hyungwon nods, pulling his mask up over his nose.

Maybe it’s just Minhyuk’s imagination, but he feels like they’re close enough not to need to fill the silence with talk; instead, they coexist quietly in the fading sunlight, like two old cats on a sun-warmed bench.

He wonders, daringly, what would happen if he reached across and took Hyungwon’s hand, lacing their fingers together and walking palm to palm. Minhyuk catches himself clenching his hands into fists over and over again as he imagines Hyungwon tracing his knuckles with a cool fingertip and feels a blush warm his cheeks, closely followed by a thrill of terror in his stomach. He doesn’t notice Hyungwon looking over at him curiously, eyes half-hidden by his sweaty blonde bangs.

“Is something wrong?” Hyungwon asks, and Minhyuk can hear a small smile under his mask, can see it lifting his cheeks ever so slightly. “You look… I don’t want to say constipated, but…”

Minhyuk reaches over and slaps him, sending him staggering away, giggling and clutching his arm. He grins back, but it’s absentminded, as he tries to will the flush from his face and quash the zero-g environment in his chest. This is fine, he assures himself. Banter. Teasing. This is normal. Familiar, worn territory. _Friendly_ territory, he reminds himself firmly.

Friends and colleagues. Like parallel lines. Always together, never intersecting.

They make it back to the dorm in near-silence, save for Hyungwon humming the chorus from “Beautiful Night” over and over as they walk. He doesn’t stop humming as he pulls a key from his pocket and opens the door, making a beeline for the couch and flopping down with his eyes glued to his phone.

Minhyuk follows him in, tries the door to the shower and gives up when he hears Kihyun’s singing through the door. He’s heading for his room when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

He pulls it out. It’s a text from Hyungwon. A photo.

Minhyuk blinks at his screen, heart thumping away in his chest and ears dizzyingly warm. Maybe it isn’t a big deal, but his hoodie seems two sizes too small right now. He’s staring down at a screenshot of a tweet, a photoset of screencaps from that moment where he’d nuzzled up to Hyungwon’s ear, whispered, giggling, for him to cut it out, felt his blonde bangs brush his forehead…

_Shit, he’s fallen faster than he thought._

He casts a glance back over his shoulder. Hyungwon’s smiling, looking out from under his bangs. “Funny, right?” he says. Bites his lip.

“Yeah,” Minhyuk replies, hating the breathlessness that creeps into his voice.

“You’re blushing,” Hyungwon says, the corner of his mouth tilting up. “Cute.”

Minhyuk can’t do anything but stand there and laugh, phone slipping a little in his sweaty hand, words bubbling up in his chest that have no right being there.

The bathroom door opens and Minhyuk is met with a cloud of steam and the sight of Kihyun in a towel, which is enough to ruin any moment. He beats a hasty retreat to his and Changkyun’s room, sinking onto his bed and clutching the blanket to his chest. He feels like a middle schooler with a crush again, making eye contact with them across the classroom and feeling his heart flutter.

His finger hovers over Hoseok’s contact for the longest time before he presses call.

Hoseok picks up. Minhyuk brings his phone to his ear and swallows.

“Hyung. I’m so fucked.”


End file.
